Nikolas, On Fri, Dec 12, 2014 at 5:57 AM, Blodgett, Nikolas <[email protected]> wrote: > you know, when I was typing it I was thinking about exactly how it was > worded and I came to the same conclusion. What I was trying to say I think > was that humans are all so relatively similar that we can count on finding > a 'general consensus', as we all have the same kind of senses; and possibly > even the same brain structures, such as a specific r/l hemisphere because > of 'standing up' and having language/a dominant hand, etc.
Dan: Now you are talking about our biological similarities and yes, most human beings are biologically the same. No argument there. NB: > So when we all > get different "histories, educations, likes/dislikes", they are all the > same languages and cultural contexts in large swaths. Dan: No. Growing up in an isolated culture like North Korea is bound to be far different than coming of age in say, Brooklyn. I've witnessed differences here in the United States. Drive 500 miles south of Chicago and the entire culture changes. People may speak English but it isn't the same language I'm used to. It takes me several months to not only speak that southern dialect but to hear it too. > Most people tend to > be more similar than we think, and I think its important to realize how > similar we are across all of humanity (as well as how we are different) - > so that we can extract general nature principles, as scientific factor > analysis can sometimes be capable of. Dan: Most people care about the same things, sure. They love their children and want a better life for them. They value a warm and a safe place to sleep, good food to eat, and clean water to drink. NB: > As for subjective proof, I recently > read (or am reading, i never finished... the library is pissed) a book by > Thomas Nagel 'A View from Nowhere' and I keep coming back to this one quote > in my notebook that i think captures what Im trying to say (its at the > beginning of the chapter on morals, so hes recapping subject/object > discussions before hand) > > "Again let me stress that this is not to be understood on the model of > perception of features of the external world. The subject matter of our > investigation is how to live, aned the process of ethical thought is one of > motivational discovery. The fact that people can come to agreement on > answers which they regard as objective suggests that when they step outside > of their particular individual perspectives they call into operation a > common evaluative faculty whose correct functioning provides the answers, > even though it can also malfunction and be distorted by other influences. > It is not a question of bringing the mind into correspondence with an > external reality which acts causally on it, but of reordering the mind > itself in accordance with demands of its own external view of itself" Dan: Nagel has been mentioned here before. This is a finely tuned paragraph to be sure. That most people regard the world as objectively real is beyond dispute. What Nagel suggests here is rather than bringing the mind into an accord with that supposed objective reality, what might be occurring instead is that the mind reorders itself with its perceived external view of itself. He is rejecting correspondence theories, materialism, and idealism all in one fell swoop. Observer and observed become one. Interesting stuff... > >NB: > As I see it, its like he mentions later, after ethics comes into the > picture "its a question of if we think everyone is equally important or > unimportant. I tend to think the answer is somewhere in between". But > before ethics is a question, we must realize that all language is > arbitrary, just how much of what we do is completely automatic, and how > that 'common evaluative faculty' -because it is influenced by those factors > and the ones you mentioned - tend to make people much more commonly > grounded than they think they are. Dan: I think if you bring the MOQ into play here and start with the notion that value and morals are the same just as observer and observed, then we begin to see that language is far from arbitrary. Even what we term 'automatic reflex' is the result of a foundation of values built into our language(s) and consequentially into culture... all culture. The differences occur when certain values are more advantageous than others but at the root of all human affairs we share commonalities too. NB: > I think theres a bit of an egocentric > view humanity has of itself sometimes (maybe just a little, like being the > center of the universe - or 'god ordained to rule over all nature') > So i guess i agree with you in a way, I find my thoughts are usually very > open to flexability. gotta stay loose! Dan: Agreed. It's good not to become too dogmatic about anything. On the other hand, it is also good to understand the foundations of what we are discussing, namely the MOQ, and how it pertains to not only the individual but the world at large. Thank you, Dan http://www.danglover.com Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
